When I first posted about our decision to homeschool, I confidently asserted that there would be many more posts to come on this topic. Now, a few months later, I’m finally getting around to posting another one. I guess I’ve been busy homeschooling. :)

Actually, I’ve sat down to write something several times, but there are so many muddled thoughts floating around my head all the time that I can’t make much sense of them on paper (errr… computer screen).

A few Mondays ago, when public schools started around here, it really hit me… this is her first day of not going to school. We’re really doing this thing.

I’ve found myself unsure how to answer two very simple questions I’ve been asked often over the late summer: “Have you started homeschooling yet?” and “Is she in kindergarten?” Now, I could answer with a simple “yes” and “yes” and be done with it, and sometimes that’s the right course of action. However, I’m never sure what the other person really has in mind.

Did I buy a boxed kindergarten curriculum consisting of 180 daily lessons that I will systematically work through between August and May? That’s a much easier question to answer—NO.

After much reading and research, I’ve found myself more on the “hold off on formal schooling and let kids have fun being kids” side of the fence. However, I happen to have a kid who already reads fluently and is pretty darn good at math as well. But she is still 5 and acts like a 5-year-old, not a 7-year-old. She can do some work that is more difficult than kindergarten level, but not very much of it, because she’s only 5. (And I wouldn’t want her to, anyway.) We’re just in a different position than many others her age, and no ready-made curriculum would be right for her. So I’m making up my own.

I’m also drawn to the Charlotte Mason approach, which I still have a lot more to learn about. In CM-style learning, formal schoolwork doesn’t start until at least age 6 anyway, so I’ve put together a very simple (but hopefully still high-quality) “kindergarten” plan while I spend this school year learning more about the CM method and reading some of her original works. So far, here’s my understanding of it: the method treats the child as a “whole person” and puts emphasis on the atmosphere in which the child grows up as well as the training of good habits. Academically, it uses “living books” rather than dry, bland textbooks, and uses “narration” (having the child tell or write what she’s learned) rather than fill-in-the-blank type questions. It always uses original, excellent works of art, music, literature, and history rather than “dumbed down” versions for children, and lets children respond directly to these works and make their own connections rather than being told what they should think. Lessons are kept short at the younger ages, and there is LOTS of time for free play, nature exploration, creativity, etc.

So what exactly are we doing these days? Stay tuned… (No, really, I’m going to try to post something in the next few days…)

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